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  Freud once famously said thaat sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. In fact, the Freud who said this might well be the folklore Freud. Still, the Apocrypha counts. Derrida famously tried to show that an example is never just an example, although as far as I know, he never approached Freud’s cigar ( he confined himself to Baudelaire’s tobacco use). I’m with Derrida on this. The cigar example is a good example of an example that goes a bit far, part of the identikit of Freud with the masculine-marked brown tube in his mouth. What is interesting about the fake saying is that it is supposed to be an example of something that isn’t an example, that will stubbornly remain the thing that it is, just the thing that it is. And in making it exemplarily non-exemplary, the fake Freud is offering us a counterfeit, something   parasitic on a systems of markers of value that isn’t, as it happens, what it seems to be. How was the cigar chosen to be this exemplary non-example – that is the question.

  I lie to power – I never tell the truth. Power comes in through the wiring and   mail and from sharp instruments they keep in the booth of the GP’s office, tap tap; any frail   who thinks she’ll win first place for speaking out her version to the proper guys,   will find soon enough that her life is leaking out in big bad droplets down her thighs.   Power loves the truth – as long as you’re telling it they’ll jot it down and file it with your pass.   Lie to the authorities, whisper when you’re yelling it - never let them know   when you’re showing them your ass.